More In Jobs

Drive Notepad: A Browser-Based Text Editor for Google Docs

On Monday, I showed you how to host a website on Google Drive, which is a free and easy hosting solution. What if you want to edit the content you’ve uploaded to your website? Well, in a helpful comment, ProfHacker reader Chris Clark points us to a Google Drive app called Drive Notepad, which turns out to be a pretty darned impressive text editor: “View and edit all kinds of text documents in your browser. Includes syntax highlighting for many scripting and programming languages.”

This app is not affiliated with Google, but is the creation of a developer listed as “DM” on the app’s page. To use Drive Notepad, you need to first get the browser Google Chrome (if you’re not already using it) and then go to this page in the Chrome Web Store, where you can install the app. (For help with installing, managing, and uninstalling Google Drive apps, check out this help page.)

I’ve only just started experimenting with this app, but I already have a few observations:

Pros

Support for a variety of file types, including *.html, *.css, *.js

Syntax highlighting, which makes it much easier to identify the different parts of your text

Extensive keyboard shortcuts

Because you’re working with Google Docs, version control is built in

Cons

Security? The developer writes, “Hopefully it is pretty secure. Certainly it was developed with proper security in mind. Note however that it has not been vetted by any security experts.” Okay, then.

ProfHacker Writers

Amy Cavender is a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, and Associate Professor of Political Science and interim Director of the Center for Academic Innovation at Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, Indiana.